Poem-a-Day 2016 Writer’s Digest Challenge #30. Theme: Dead End

Till the Last Cul-De-Sac

“It is a long road spiked with thorns and briars and pitfalls and problems.” (Spencer W. Kimball, the Twelfth Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on “the road of repentance”)

It took three dead end jobs,
to gain experience for The Career.
It took following two dead end relationships,
to reach The One.
It took the burying of one well,
before another could be built.

Life is a trek, culminating in a cul-de-sac,
until that last stop,
when Death—
like a Gentleman Caller—
comes knocking at the last house on the end.
Your temple is that house.
He comes to take you where you will be most comfortable,
be it North or South.
Your path will be vertical,
and it will have been determined,
possibly,
at the last twinkling of your eye.

Your life is a roadmap,
drawn by you,
and it is how,
be it Freyja or Odin,
or any little ambulance chaser,
finds you.

Roads of repentance with its sandspurs
and all manner of sharp things,
in which you may travel on barefoot and in sackcloth,
with the taste of cigarette ash on the tongue,
will run through like blue, veiny rivers—
like deoxygenated blood.

The roads not taken will mostly disappear,
for one decision can slice through an artery,
making such a backtrack impassable—
just as one murder can erase an entire bloodline.
Be prepared that certain roads will be known
only through memory as “If Only When”.

Railroad tracks will stamp their way through,
(sometimes underneath the skin via tunnels),
like stiches keeping it all together.
You must look both ways before crossing over,
but often, in a hurry to get where you’re going,
you won’t look side to side,
only ahead,
and you will miss out on the important things
that God has placed in your path.

Sometimes you will travel in the wrong clothes,
at the wrong times,
through dark waters,
over which the Prince of Perdition has limited powers.
Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re drowning,
but if you stop fighting the forces
that are beyond your control,
you will find a way out.

There are shortcuts that aren’t short,
detours that take you where you don’t want to go,
and freeways with too many exits.
There are highways where we have to keep up,
or be steamrolled.
That is when we take the backroads,
unpaved, grassy,
with weeds growing like wildflowers,
is where we take our time to reflect on where we’re going,
but remember that you will finally run out of gas.

Walking through deserts will make you thirst,
and breezing through beaches will make you complacent.
Be content, but always hunger,
always thirst,
just a little bit.

Mountains will form in your path
like doors that are stuck,
and you will have to pray for strength—
not for the door to move elsewhere,
but for the fortitude to be able to get through it.
Sometimes you’ll tire and want to go back down,
but if you keep your eye single to the glory—
if you will endure to the end—
you will reach the summit.
Your perspective will change,
for you will be able to see as far as the curve of the Earth—
the closest to Heaven you will ever be—
far from the maddening crowds.

When you reach your destination,
when you climb down toward something you want,
or think you want,
the wind at your back,
you will be on the other side.
You will either be changed
or you will change yourself,
because you will have come too far.